OECD HomeTradeExport creditsOfficial Export Credit Support to Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and Countries that are only eligible for International Development Association Funds (Ida-Only Countries): Statement of Principles (2001)

Official Export Credit Support to Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and Countries that are only eligible for International Development Association Funds (Ida-Only Countries): Statement of Principles (2001)

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES (2001)

Members of the OECD Working Party on Export Credits and Credit Guarantees (ECG) recognise the importance of the Debt Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), the purpose of which is to bring these countries' debt burdens to sustainable levels, subject to satisfactory policy performance, so as to ensure that adjustment and reform efforts are not put at risk by continued high debt and debt service burdens.

Insofar as official export credits contribute to a country's overall debt burden, the ECG Members agree that such credits should not be provided for unproductive expenditure in HIPCs.

Unproductive expenditure generally refers to transactions that are not consistent with these countries' poverty reduction and debt sustainability strategies and do not contribute to their social and/or economic development.

It is understood that the adoption of these Principles does not automatically preclude support for equipment deemed essential to the debtor country's national security or required to combat e.g. the drug trade, smuggling, piracy.

In order to assess the ECG Members' success towards ensuring that officially supported export credits to HIPCs are not provided for unproductive purposes, the ECG Members have agreed to report transactions supported to these countries and to review them on an annual basis.